We really enjoyed creating motion design for the web, and we knew that most big companies needed banner ads. It became very fun to produce high-quality animations within the technical limitations of media buys. Having millions of people interact with your work is also a neat aspect of the business.

What was the first job someone hired you for?

A screensaver that searched Flickr for images of Converse and rotated them randomly in a continuous loop. This was a really quick job with a big impact. The code was concise, the animation was slick, and the client loved it. At one point it was running on everyone’s computer in the office and we were really satisfied with the results.

How has the business changed since you started?

We actually started with a lot of application programming. Our previous work included dashboards, widgets, editors and the like. When Flash began to wane, we focused heavily on banner ads because they were stylistic and profitable. It has been a welcome change, as we’ve become HTML5 animation experts through the process as well.

What emerging tech trend will have the biggest impact on your business?

This one is pretty obvious for anyone in the advertising industry. The true end of Flash is upon us, which means that publishers, agencies, and developers need to reconfigure workflows for HTML5 banners. This is great in a lot of ways, including creating opportunities across the board, but the lack of standardization with the ad serving platforms causes plenty of tedious work that had been previously ironed out with Flash. Eventually this pain period will pass, though, and we’ll be back to focusing solely on making banners look great with HTML5.

What advice do you have for agency producers or creatives?

Talk to your developers about technical restrictions before showing anything to the client. Nothing is more stressful than making a promise that can’t be fulfilled. A quick conversation with the developers at the onset of a project can save a boatload of headaches later.

We’re going to remain focused on motion design for the web. There are a lot of upcoming technologies that developers will stretch to their limits and we want to be a part of that growth. Ultimately it is taste that creates good work, and technology is the vehicle, but we love that web animation capabilities will keep expanding.